Somebody got pretty sensitive about my previous comment but I'll just say this. I'm a hiring manager. And I have legit ADHD myself. It is a struggle every damn day to do my job.
And I would never ever disclose this to my boss
And nobody should ever disclose it to me in an interview.
You will not get hired for any kind of serious intense job.
This is how the world works, this is how such a disclosure would be received, don't get mad at me for explaining reality to you, I didn't make the rules. Just be smart and keep it to yourself.
Employee resource group. I talked to someone who had started one at her previous company.
Unless a company acknowledges and supports being ND, there’s too much of a stigma. Like Director 1 and a few others have said, an employer may perceive it as you not being able to do the job.
I choose not to at an interview. I feel that even though I may do well in the interview that they would put an unbiased judgment on me and would be fearful that i wouldn't be able to do my job.
Do it once you are already working. There are a lot of laws that will protect you. Also, you don't really know the people across the table to know how they will react to it.
It usually hurts more than it helps. At best, people really don’t know what to do with the information. The laws only protect what you can prove and there is also an exception for behavior. Since ADHD is primarily behavioral, support/accommodations will be discretionary anyway.
It really depends on you. I personally didn't disclose my diagnosis to my company but I recently did. They have become way more suppprtive and accommodating. I did wish I told them sooner.
I’ve never disclosed or speak about it at work. I was diagnosed as a child and have learned coping techniques that help me use my ADD to outperform others.
Thank you for providing all of this information! I do something similar with planning but everything is digital. I have tried using timers with the Pomodoro method. I never tried it consistently enough to determine if it really helps. I’ve been put off by using timers because once I get into that hyper focused state it’s really hard for me to stop working on what I am working on. Or it may take me a while to get focused on a task and taking a break when I haven’t really done much on the task feels counterintuitive. But I’m sure there are benefits.
I have not disclosed my ADHD. I also don’t plan on disclosing it. I can’t really think of a concrete reason to do so.
If my team or managers had a good understanding of ADHD and would be able to understand why I do the things I do or the way I work then I would be more open to sharing it. Or if there was a specific reason or situation that kept occurring where I felt it would be best to explain that I have ADHD I would let them know and hope that they would understand my behavior better and not hold it against me because it’s not neurotypical behavior.
For example, I have to write down everything. Even if it’s something really simple, I write it down. Let’s say I had a team member who always talked too fast or threw a lot of information at people and did not give me enough time to properly write everything down. I would probably start off by asking them to slow down so that I can make sure I keep proper notes of everything. But to take the situation further, let’s say that I ask them to slow down so I can take a notes but they refuse to do so and I end up losing out on important information and that impacts my job. At that point I might bring my concerns up with my manager, or that team member and disclose that I have ADHD and explain how that ties into my need for writing things down.
Excuse the lengthy comment. TLDR: I wouldn’t disclose it unless my performance was negatively impacted by my ADHD, and I believed sharing that information would help my team understand things better.
It's just a personal choice of mine to now reveal it. I don't want any biases swaying their situation either ay. Once I'm hired, I let my hiring manager know I'm going to need accommodations.
I do but only because I don't want to get burned. I want to set the expectation outright so no one is blind sided by my ability to focus on certain projects some days. That's just my approach though.
I said that i felt being ND was a strenght because of creativity in problem solving. Did not specify but im slowly starting to talk about it to show that yes, you can still have good performance. I would not have said it outright in the begining.
Somebody got pretty sensitive about my previous comment but I'll just say this. I'm a hiring manager. And I have legit ADHD myself. It is a struggle every damn day to do my job.
And I would never ever disclose this to my boss
And nobody should ever disclose it to me in an interview.
You will not get hired for any kind of serious intense job.
This is how the world works, this is how such a disclosure would be received, don't get mad at me for explaining reality to you, I didn't make the rules. Just be smart and keep it to yourself.
Pro
Nope and I don’t plan to unless that company has a neurodivergence ERG.
Pro
Employee resource group. I talked to someone who had started one at her previous company.
Unless a company acknowledges and supports being ND, there’s too much of a stigma. Like Director 1 and a few others have said, an employer may perceive it as you not being able to do the job.
I choose not to at an interview. I feel that even though I may do well in the interview that they would put an unbiased judgment on me and would be fearful that i wouldn't be able to do my job.
Do it once you are already working. There are a lot of laws that will protect you. Also, you don't really know the people across the table to know how they will react to it.
It usually hurts more than it helps. At best, people really don’t know what to do with the information. The laws only protect what you can prove and there is also an exception for behavior. Since ADHD is primarily behavioral, support/accommodations will be discretionary anyway.
It really depends on you. I personally didn't disclose my diagnosis to my company but I recently did. They have become way more suppprtive and accommodating. I did wish I told them sooner.
How have they accommodated you?
I’ve never disclosed or speak about it at work. I was diagnosed as a child and have learned coping techniques that help me use my ADD to outperform others.
Thank you for providing all of this information! I do something similar with planning but everything is digital. I have tried using timers with the Pomodoro method. I never tried it consistently enough to determine if it really helps. I’ve been put off by using timers because once I get into that hyper focused state it’s really hard for me to stop working on what I am working on. Or it may take me a while to get focused on a task and taking a break when I haven’t really done much on the task feels counterintuitive. But I’m sure there are benefits.
I have not disclosed my ADHD. I also don’t plan on disclosing it. I can’t really think of a concrete reason to do so.
If my team or managers had a good understanding of ADHD and would be able to understand why I do the things I do or the way I work then I would be more open to sharing it. Or if there was a specific reason or situation that kept occurring where I felt it would be best to explain that I have ADHD I would let them know and hope that they would understand my behavior better and not hold it against me because it’s not neurotypical behavior.
For example, I have to write down everything. Even if it’s something really simple, I write it down. Let’s say I had a team member who always talked too fast or threw a lot of information at people and did not give me enough time to properly write everything down. I would probably start off by asking them to slow down so that I can make sure I keep proper notes of everything. But to take the situation further, let’s say that I ask them to slow down so I can take a notes but they refuse to do so and I end up losing out on important information and that impacts my job. At that point I might bring my concerns up with my manager, or that team member and disclose that I have ADHD and explain how that ties into my need for writing things down.
Excuse the lengthy comment.
TLDR: I wouldn’t disclose it unless my performance was negatively impacted by my ADHD, and I believed sharing that information would help my team understand things better.
It's just a personal choice of mine to now reveal it. I don't want any biases swaying their situation either ay. Once I'm hired, I let my hiring manager know I'm going to need accommodations.
What accommodations do you request?
I do but only because I don't want to get burned. I want to set the expectation outright so no one is blind sided by my ability to focus on certain projects some days. That's just my approach though.
Um and do you get hired?
What would be "getting burned" in your view?
I said that i felt being ND was a strenght because of creativity in problem solving. Did not specify but im slowly starting to talk about it to show that yes, you can still have good performance. I would not have said it outright in the begining.